I recently finished my second end grain cutting board; this time using a brick pattern (See my first end grain cutting board build).  My wife and I saw an example of a brick-patern, end grain cutting board at a craft fair we attended recently and I thought it would be a fun pattern to try.  Cutting boards are definitely not the most exciting projects, but they are a great way to use scrap wood and they make a great gift.

I published the video on YouTube and it seems to have been well received so far.  One question that I received a few times so far relates to the direction of the grain in each piece of the cutting board.  All of the bricks and every piece of ‘mortar’ had the end grain facing out.  It’s important that all of the pieces have the same orientation to greatly reduce the potential for cracking over time.

In order to help me visualize and determine my plan of attack for the cutting board, I modeled each stage of the cutting board in SketchUp (each brick was 2″ long by 1″ wide and the mortar was 1/4″ wide).  This was a huge help in picturing each stage before any cuts were made.  The long grain intermediate (top most picture below) ended up being 1″ thick after sanding the glueup and is extra long for some margin of error.

Click Image to Enlarge:

If you’d like to watch the build video you can see it here and if you have any questions please let me know.